Saturday, April 21, 2018

The High Steppe

Drugs are not new to the human experience.

[T]he Yamnaya people, who swept out of Central Asia about 5000 years ago and left their genes in most living Europeans and South Asians, appear to have carried cannabis to Europe and the Middle East. In 2016, a team from the German Archaeological Institute and the Free University, both in Berlin, found residues and botanical remains of the plant, which originates in East and Central Asia, at Yamnaya sites across Eurasia. It's difficult to know whether the Yamnaya used cannabis simply to make hemp for rope or also smoked or ingested it. But some ancient people did inhale: Digs in the Caucasus have uncovered braziers containing seeds and charred remains of cannabis dating to about 3000 B.C.E.

I assume Korea has had mosquitoes similar to elsewhere, might presence or absence of malaria been a factor? Koreans have no Beta Thallasemia or unusual hemoglobin form, eg. sickle cell, do they? Any thoughts on this?